


Boredom's Price

by IrenkaFeralKitty



Series: Oh, Were O Were [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: X-Wing Series - Aaron Allston & Michael Stackpole
Genre: Abuse of exercise equipment, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Boredom, Gen, Shapeshifting, Were-Creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:02:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25417381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrenkaFeralKitty/pseuds/IrenkaFeralKitty
Summary: Quarntine is making everyone feel a bit stir crazy.
Series: Oh, Were O Were [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1176797
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Boredom's Price

Something was happening. He could feel it. 

Corran flicked his eyes around the room, trying to spot the source of the strange, faint sound. The space was busy with various people and groups milling about. Straw covered the ground, coating both bare concrete and colorful rugs, as well as clinging to pants, shirts, furred coats, and furniture alike. Worn tapestries woven in styles of centuries past were hung and tacked into place along the half-cylinder that made up the walls and ceiling, valiantly working to absorb the sounds of the different lycanthropes inside the kwanza hut and keep it from turning into a tunnel of raw, agonizing noise. Fans hung from the ceiling and perched onto stands and tables all over the place, helping to keep the air moving and tolerable despite the equipment and mass of bodies milling about.

Nothing seemed out of place. The foosball table had its usual cluster of members of the Blue Angel Pack (a cluster of raucous, speed obsessed greyhound shifters) while Nova’s hippo shifters drifted from the one old arcade game to another, pausing only to swap in to try and defeat the current  _ Dance Dance Revolution  _ champion. The rickety card tables were equally represented by a mix of pack and loner rodent and feline shifters (as well as a single, suspicious platypus shifter) glaring at each other over games of  _ Apples to Apples, Monopoly  _ (Bass Fishing edition) _ ,  _ and, appropriately,  _ Pandemic. _

The ping pong table was also still covered in yellow  _ Caution! _ tape and the signs indicating all use of it was banned following last week’s rage-induced “Sky Bomb” serve.

The number of shifters taking a “quarantine vacation” at the Janson family farm grew every week. Wes’s sister had gone into full cruise director mode to keep everyone as happy as possible given the lockdowns they were living under. There were still tensions, though, and the Rogues continued to stand out as a rare pack that mixed together several different animal species. 

Tensions could run high with such a volatile mix of tempers and shifter species. Fortunately, everything seemed normal for now. That still didn’t explain the sound, though. 

“Wedge-“ Corran started, turning to the man sitting next to him on the couch. 

“Everything’s fine.”

“I think something’s going on that-“

“It’s FINE. Everything is completely normal.”

Frowning, Corran focused all his attention on Wedge. The other man was sitting a bit more rigidly than usual, his right leg kept starting and stopping random spurts of agitated bouncing, and he was really trying quite hard to focus on the (terrible) period piece playing on the large television. 

Clear and obvious tension. Wedge somehow already knew what was prickling at Corran’s senses and was trying to pretend he didn’t. Which meant two things: Wes was involved and Salm would-

“Antilles!”

Speaking of…

Salm stormed up to the TV area, his expression thunderous. Wedge twitched, his head cocking to the side and his eyes briefly glinting yellow as his canine alter ego bubbled to the surface. 

Charolais bull meets border collie. Herd animal versus herder dog. 

These fights were always fun. 

“Do you realize what members of  _ your pack _ are doing right now, Antilles?” Salm demanded. “The irritation and annoyance they are causing everyone? The flagrant  _ abuse _ of the equipment that has been provided to us in our time of need?”

“You mean the things Wes’s family has provided?” Wedge replied with dangerous calm. “The personal materials they have shared with every shifter in need in a hundred miles around this town? Without asking for any kind of compensation beyond what each pack is able to provide without causing any undue harm?”

Salm glared, his thick moustache quivering.

Wedge glared back, his expression calm but also very, very dangerous. The air seemed to sizzle between them, crackling with tension as the two alphas clashed. Within moments, the other shifters (save Corran) found other places to be and disappeared from the immediate area. 

Salm broke first, tearing his eyes away from the smaller man to stare at the floor. Beads of sweat dotted his receding hairline. Slowly, the intense energy that had been building up faded away. 

“Corran? Wes is in the workout room. Go check on him, will you?” Wedge asked after glaring for a few more moments.

“Sure.” Anything to get away from these two. Salm would rally soon enough and start tearing into Wedge for the lack of order and discipline in his pack. The clashes always ended the same way, but Salm didn’t seem to care. He was the very embodiment of the term “bull headed”.

Corran wove his way through the nervous clusters of shifters and headed for the back of the hut. He had to step across wet concrete while the people occupying the two sets of outdoor showers cackled at each other, water flying liberally through the air and splashing all over the concrete pad. A simple tin roof shielded the showers from the sun beaming down from overhead and connected the recreation hut to the one sitting perpendicular behind it and the showers. 

Free weights clinked in a regular rhythm while other shifters used the various pieces of workout equipment that filled this hut. The cheap laminate was peeling in places here and there as it peeked out from under the thick rubber mats covering the floor. Corran didn’t recognize all of the equipment being used - he was pretty sure some of it came from his grandfather’s time, if not before them. Periodically along the sloping walls were rattling window air conditioning units struggling to keep the metal hut from reaching dangerous temperatures in the summer heat.

Taking a leisurely look around, Corran couldn’t help but feel a flicker of appreciation for the various people working out around him. Corran was absolutely committed to Trouble and knew no one here could ever compare… but he also couldn’t help but notice and appreciate the people around him. And there was plenty on display for him to look at. 

None of them proved to be Wes, though, so Corran eventually tores his eyes away from Plourr, a terrifying alligator shifter from New Orleans, and made his way over to the “Cardio Room” at the far end of the hut.

The various treadmills, exercise bikes, and elliptical machines were sectioned off into a room of their own that had been created by combining large pieces of sheet metal, old horse blankets, and several hours of resigned welder’s time. Another window A/C unit buzzed as it blasted the space with cold air. 

_ Whirrr-rrrr-THUMP. _

“I’m telling you, it’s not going to work while you’re this small.” Rapid chittering answered, only to be cut off by Hobbie’s slow drawl. “Because you can’t tilt the basket up when you reach the end, that’s why.”

Bemused, Corran slipped fully into the room and leaned against the wall, watching the two shifters at one of the far treadmills. 

Hobbie was sitting on an upturned trash can, his phone in his hand and the camera app activated. Corran didn’t need to see his fade to know he was frowning. 

Wes, in racoon form, continued to chitter through Hobbie’s annoyed statements as he struggled to maneuver a plastic laundry basket back onto the treadmill. Given that it was still running and he only weighed about thirty-five pounds, he wasn’t having a lot of success.

Sighing, Hobbie pushed himself back to his feet and limped over to the treadmill, his prosthetic foot oddly silent for once as he walked over the thick rubber mats. “Jump in, I’ll get the basket in place. You won’t have footage of this, though.”

That must have been acceptable because Wes eagerly dove into the white basket, his tail swinging wildly through the air. The chirping sound of “Ready!” they had all become familiar with emerged from the basket a few moments later and Hobbie dragged the basket to the top of the treadmill. 

“Alright, seven miles an hour. Letting go in three, two, one, NOW.”

Hobbie let go. The basket flew down the treadmill and Wes somehow managed to tilt the end up just as he reached the end of the track, causing the basket to shoot off the end and skid along the floor into the wall.

Excited squeaks floated out of the upturned basket.

“Do I want to know?” Corran asked.

Hobbie glanced over, unsurprised. “Wes saw a video on the Internet.”

“The origin story of so many terrible ideas,” Corran replied. He walked over and stood next to his packmate, watching Wes squirm out from under the basket. 

Shrugging, Hobbie switched from the camera to his saved videos and offered the device to Corran. “One mile an hour,” he said as the video began to play. 

In the recording, Wes was in human form and crammed into the same basket he was still somewhat trapped by. His knees were folded up around his chin and he had one of his niece’s bicycle helmets strapped to his head. The basket traveled down the treadmill, reached the end, and tipped over.

Hobbie reached down and swiped to another video. “Two miles an hour.”

This time Wes tilted the front of the basket up when he reached the end and slid right off the end without a pratfall at the end.

“Three miles an hour,” Hobbie said, as a nearly identical scene played out, just very slightly faster. At four miles an hour, Wes tipped over again at the end, grunting as his nose was squished against the laminate flooring. The next video, featuring the great speed of five miles an hour, had a slightly more impressive wipe out, and the one after, at six miles an hour, featured a costume change: this time, Wes was wearing an orange Ninja Turtles mask instead of the helmet.

Hobbie reached out again and skipped the video for seven miles an hour and had Corran watch Wes wipe out as he fell off the treadmill and shoot across the floor at eight and nine miles an hour. 

“Seven’s the best one,” he said, and it was. Wes managed to keep a good hold of the vertical supports for the treadmill controls at the top of the running exercise machine before launching the basket down the track. He tilted the front of the basket up at just the right moment and the basket immediately flew across the floor as it shot off the end.

Corran shook his head as he handed the phone back to Hobbie. “And now the goal is what, exactly?”

“To see if Wes does better if he’s a racoon. We’re starting with seven miles an hour because that’s the best run he had as a human.”

Wes let out a triumphant trill as he finally emerged victorious from under the basket. The plastic scraped softly on the linoleum floor as he dragged it over to his packmates. 

“Salm’s mad,” Corran told Hobbie.

“Yeah, he came in here earlier to use the elliptical,” Hobbie said. “We were on our second run at four miles an hour. He turned red and left, so we kept going.”

A tiny racoon hand tugged at Corran’s pants leg. Wes let out small, pleading sounds as he hefted the basket up next to himself. Corran stared. “I’m not launching the basket for you.”

Wes chittered sadly, staring up at Corran with big, sad eyes. 

“I’m serious, I’m just supposed to be checking on you for Wedge.”

Racoon Wes’s body slumped in apparent misery and he began to sadly waddle away, small fingers clutching as best they could to the thing plastic weave on the sides of the basket.

“It’d really help us out,” Hobbie said. “I can’t launch Wes and record the runs at the same time.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“Of course it is. It’s for the Internet.”

Corran stared. “All the Internet will see are rednecks launching a wild animal off a treadmill in a basket. The only end result of putting videos up of Wes like this is visit from animal control.”

Hobbie rolled his eyes. “Then we’ll just put up the ones where he’s human and keep the racoon ones for ourselves. Come on.”

The basket suddenly flew down the treadmill, sans raccoon. Wes chittered sadly again and jumped onto the treadmill to go after the basket. When he reached the end, instead of a graceful dismount, he belly flopped right onto the spot where the rubber mat ended, letting out a tiny, pathetic  _ oof. _

“You’re not going to stop, are you?”

“Nope. We have a plan and it’ll get done one way or another. It’ll be faster if you help.”

Sighing, Corran reluctantly went to go retrieve the basket. “Whatever gets you two out of here sooner rather than later.”

Wes trilled excitedly and jumped into the basket, where he began to spin in eager circles. 

“Hey.” Corran looked up and Hobbie gave him a solemn look. He held out the helmet and cloth mask Wes had worn in the videos. “You can wear these if you want to hide your face.”

“I am NOT wearing those,” Corran vowed.

* * *

Tycho was still bursting into fits of giggles as they got ready for bed. Corran was still sulking.

“Please tell me you kept the helmet and mask,” Tycho said between chortles.

Corran glared. “Of course not, they belong to Wes’s niece and nephews.”

“I can’t believe you wore them!”

“I can’t believe Wes played that video for  _ every fucking shifter  _ in the hut,” Corran muttered as he kicked his clothes towards the laundry basket.

“Come on, that leap out of the basket on the last run was pretty damned impressive. He managed to land on one of the TVs.”

“He’s a demanted lunatic and should be locked away for his own protection.”

Tycho laughed again because he was an asshole. Instead of continuing to nettle Corran, though, he pulled him down onto the bed and hugged him tight. “You know Wes is going mad with cabin fever. Thank you for helping keep him entertained.”

“You wanted him entertained? Get me a fucking gigantic treadmill and I”ll launch him into the sun.”

“You’ll wear the mask for that, though, right?”

“Shut up, Trouble.”


End file.
